Tuesday, January 18, 2011

You should roll a healer or ranged DPS in WAR. Alright, that's not really news. It is good to know though. I hopped on my RR41 Runepriest yesterday and just raked in the renown. Gained 1.5 renown levels in about an hour.

I do spend most of my time solo (out of party) in open RvR. In scenarios, I am always part of a group. There is some controversy about gaining renown from healing when not in the party. I can certainly understand it with scenarios. You are part of a team, so going out-of-group is pretty selfish. In open RvR though, it is a lot less loose. I don't like following the warband zergs around, so I go solo on my RP and Engy.

Renown is great on these classes for a couple of reasons (at any renown level), First, you can get damage/healing on a number of targets very easily using HoT's, DoT's and AoE. Secondly, you live longer.

Range is the great equalizer. Your enemy may be 40 renown ranks higher than you, but range doesn't care. If you play smart, you can dish out heals and damage a lot longer than your poor melee comrades. The melee train may eventually track you down (or pull you back), but you at least had a chance to fight some.

High ranking melee players may be killing machines, but their lower renown versions are a lot worse off. They don't have range to act as a buffer. Those players have to get right in the middle if they want to realize some decent renown gains. This is one of the reasons my slayer is sitting in the Land of the Dead just gathering butcher materials. Life is hard as a low ranking melee dps.

I'm not sure there is any solution to their plight, buffing the earlier armor sets may help a little. Maybe increasing renown gains for their 'contribution' would make it more worthwhile. Teaming up with higher ranked friends is probably the best way to go.